This disclosure relates to an apparatus for improved welding performance. The apparatus can be utilized in a weld cart which deposits deck material on a beam structure, processes the deck material and stud welds shear connectors (known as “studs”) onto hare beams or through the deck material to the beam and scientifically analyzes weld parameters, such as time, current, lift and plunge, used during the stud weld process. Embodiments of a representative weld cart were disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,507,824. Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to the cart disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,507,824, which shares the same inventor as the present disclosure, and which claims priority to provisional patent application U.S. 60/763,184, filed on Jan. 27, 2006, both of which are fully incorporated herein by reference.
Generally, U.S. Pat. No. 8,507,824 discloses a cart for welding studs while traversing a construction floor decking that has sequential peaks and valleys. The cart comprises a housing, a stud feed assembly connected to the housing, an arm assembly movably connected to the housing, and a stud gun axially connected to the extension member. Features of the cart may be configured such the entry of a trough accepts a plurality of studs and guides them into a chute. The chute has an angled surface and delivers studs into the receptacle of a stud catcher. The stud catcher receives and aligns studs for placement and welding by the operator.
However, specific embodiments of the cart of U.S. Pat. No. 8,507,824 are limited to the type of jobs for which they were designed. Specifically, the design features of the chute and stud catcher must be sized for a specific size, or narrow range of sizes, of studs. If a job requires use of different size studs, operators may be required to change out the stud feed assembly, including trough, chute, and stud catcher, in order to work with the different sized studs.
A need therefore exists for a stud feed assembly that does not have to be changed out when a different size stud is utilized. It therefore is an objective of the present invention to satisfy this need, as well as to provide improved weld performance and efficiency over the previous art. As discussed in detail below, presently disclosed aspects of the invention solve this problem by offering improvements to the chute and the stud catcher assembly, identified as the “chute 102” and “stud catcher 100” in U.S. Pat. No. 8,507,824, respectively.